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Title: The AWL versus Anarchism Author: Anarcho Date: July 14, 2011 Language: en Topics: critique, quotes Source: Retrieved on 5th February 2021 from https://anarchism.pageabode.com/?p=551
This leaflet was created to hand out at a debate on “Marxism and
Anarchism” at the AWL 2011 “Ideas for Freedom” Conference. It
complemented my talk (“Marxism and Anarchism” and is based on quotes
from a series of four articles in the AWL’s paper, one on Working Class
Struggle and Anarchism and the rest a three-part review of (the
excellent) Black Flame (An All Feathered New Defence of Anarchism; How
Anarchism Parted Ways With Marxism; and Anarchism and the Commune)
As becomes obvious from reading these terrible articles, the author knew
very little about anarchism. While I made numerous comments on the
articles showing this, I thought it wise to produce a leaflet which
contrasts what the AWL said about anarchism and what anarchists actually
argue. Hence this leaflet, the format of this is a quote from the AWL
about anarchism followed by quotes from the likes of Bakunin, Kropotkin
and Malatesta stating the exact opposite.
Hopefully this will be of interest to those seeking to discover the
facts about anarchism. I have also attached the pdf of the leaflet. The
sources for the quotes can be found in An Anarchist FAQ (section H in
particular).
According to the AWL’s Martin Thomas, “Marxism is more ‘bookish’ than
anarchism” and “insists more on the need for those who have decided to
become consistent activists to study, to educate themselves.” Sadly, his
account of anarchism published in Solidarity disproves it. This is easy
to show, we need only compare his comments about anarchism to what
anarchists like Michael Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman and a
host of others argued.
Once you do, you discover the false nature of claims that Schmidt and
van der Walt’s “version of anarchism [in Black Flame] is one in which
the traditional points of dispute with Marxism are thinned down or, some
of them, virtually given up.” Rather than being “further away from
conventional anarchism” it simply repeats basic revolutionary anarchist
ideas – as this leaflet proves. Is it not time for Marxists to stop
producing strawman arguments against anarchism?
“The black flag is the flag of strikes” (Louise Michel)
Schmidt and van der Walt say that anarchism… was always a class-struggle
movement. Anarcho-syndicalism was not a fringe development from
anarchism… [Their] version of anarchism is closer to Marxism than to
traditional anarchism”
“Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Malatesta were not so naive as to believe that
anarchism could be established over night. In imputing this notion to
Bakunin, Marx and Engels wilfully distorted the Russian anarchist’s
views. Nor did the anarchists… believe that abolition of the state
involved ‘laying down of arms’ immediately after the revolution, to use
Marx’s obscurantist choice of terms, thoughtlessly repeated by Lenin in
State and Revolution. Indeed, much that passes for ‘Marxism’ in State
and Revolution is pure anarchism – for example, the substitution of
revolutionary militias for professional armed bodies and the
substitution of organs of self-management for parliamentary bodies. What
is authentically Marxist in Lenin’s pamphlet is the demand for ‘strict
centralism,’ the acceptance of a ‘new’ bureaucracy, and the
identification of soviets with a state.” (Murray Bookchin)
“Some anarchists do [support class struggle]. Those are the
anarcho-syndicalists, who on this issue have the same idea as Marxists
do ... But most schools of anarchism do not.” (Martin Thomas (MT))
“between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie [is] an irreconcilable
antagonism which results inevitably from their respective stations in
life… the prosperity of the bourgeois class is incompatible with the
prosperity and freedom of the workers… because… [it] is based on the
exploitation and subjugation of the latter’s labour… war between the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie is unavoidable” (Michael Bakunin)
“When strikes spread out from one place to another, they come close to
turning into a general strike. And with the ideas of emancipation that
now hold sway over the proletariat, a general strike can result only in
a great cataclysm which forces society to shed its old skin… strikes
indicate a certain collective strength… each strike becomes the point of
departure for the formation of new groups. The necessities of the
struggle impel the workers to support one another… The more active the
struggle becomes… the stronger and more extensive this federation of
proletarians must become.” (Bakunin)
“Anarchists have always advised taking an active part in those workers’
organisations which carry on the direct struggle of Labour against
Capital and its protector – the State” (Peter Kropotkin)
“It is this war of classes that we must concentrate upon… Those who
appreciate the urgent need of co-operating in great struggles… must
organise the preparedness of the masses for the overthrow of both
capitalism and the state.
Industrial and economic preparedness is what the workers need. That
alone leads to revolution at the bottom… That alone will give the people
the means to take their children out of the slums, out of the sweat
shops and the cotton mills… That alone leads to economic and social
freedom” (Emma Goldman)
“strikes and trade unions must not only be supported, but were central
to the working class organising and educating itself for emancipation.”
(MT)
“the strike… is the beginnings of the social war of the proletariat
against the bourgeoisie… Strikes are a valuable instrument from two
points of view. Firstly, they electrify the masses… awaken in them the
feeling of the deep antagonism which exists between their interests and
those of the bourgeoisie… secondly they help immensely to provoke and
establish between the workers of all trades, localities and countries
the consciousness and very fact of solidarity: a twofold action, both
negative and positive, which tends to constitute directly the new world
of the proletariat, opposing it almost in an absolute way to the
bourgeois world.” (Bakunin)
“Since the enemy on whom we declare war is capital, it is against
capital that we have to direct our efforts… the great struggle… is an
essentially economic struggle To be able to make the revolution, the
mass of workers will have to organise themselves. Resistance and the
strike are excellent means of organisation for doing this… It is a
question of organising societies of resistance for all trades in each
town… of federating them… Workers’ solidarity must… be practised each
day between all trades and all nations” (Kropotkin)
“the direct struggle of Labour against Capital… and the State… permits
the worker to obtain some temporary improvements in the present
conditions of work, while it opens his eyes to the evil done by
Capitalism and the State that supports it, and wakes up his thoughts
concerning the possibility of organising consumption, production, and
exchange without the intervention of the capitalist and the State.”
(Kropotkin)
“Anarchism… stands for direct action… Trade unionism, the economic area
of the modern gladiator, owes its existence to direct action… In France,
in Spain, in Italy, in Russian, nay even in England… direct,
revolutionary economic action has become so strong a force in the battle
for industrial liberty as to make the world realise the tremendous
importance of labour’s power. The General Strike [is] the supreme
expression of the economic consciousness of the workers… Today every
great strike, in order to win, must realise the importance of the
solidaric general protest.” (Goldman)
“the most powerful force for social transformation is the working class
movement… Through the organisations established for the defence of their
interests, workers acquire an awareness of the oppression under which
they live and of the antagonisms which divide them from their employers,
and so begin to aspire to a better life, get used to collective struggle
and to solidarity” (Errico Malatesta)
“only the right organisation of the workers can accomplish what we are
striving for… Organisation from the bottom up, beginning with the shop
and factory, on the foundation of the joint interests of the workers
everywhere… alone can solve the labour question and serve the true
emancipation of man.” (Alexander Berkman)
“Trade-union struggle…. yields the biggest, most stable, and most
powerful organisations, and best enables the socialists to develop
dialogue with and gain organised influence among their fellow-workers.”
(MT)
“the International has been… the work of the proletariat itself ... It
was their keen and profound instinct as workers… which impelled them to
find the principle and true purpose of the International. They took the
common needs already in existence as the foundation and saw the
international organisation of economic conflict against capitalism as
the true objective of this association. In giving it exclusively this
base and aim, the workers at once established the entire power of the
International. They opened wide the gates to all the millions of the
oppressed and exploited…. organising local, national and international
strikes… establishing national and international trade unions” (Bakunin)
“what is the natural organisation of the masses? It is one based on the
different occupations of their actual daily life, on their various kinds
of work, organisations according to their occupations, trade
organisations. When all industries, including the various branches of
agriculture, are represented in the International, its organisation, the
organisation of the masses of the people, will be finished.” (Bakunin)
“only the trade union sections can give their members… practical
education and consequently only they can draw into the organisation of
the International the masses of the proletariat, those masses without
whose practical co-operation… the Social Revolution will never be able
to triumph” (Bakunin)
“Revolutionary Anarchist Communist propaganda within the Labour Unions
had always been a favourite mode of action in the Federalist or
‘Bakuninist’ section of the International Working Men’s Association. In
Spain and in Italy it had been especially successful. Now it was
resorted to, with evident success, in France and Freedom eagerly
advocated this sort of propaganda” (Kropotkin)
“But what anarchists – again with the exception of anarcho-syndicalists
– lack is a coherent idea of how the minority can act today so as best
to contribute to majority action tomorrow.” (MT)
“the workers’ world… is left with but a single path, that of
emancipation through practical action… It means workers’ solidarity in
their struggle against the bosses. It means trades-unions, organisation,
and the federation of resistance funds… reducing working hours and
increasing salary… the International… will propagandise its principles…
organise across the frontiers of all countries… so that when the
revolution … breaks out… the International will be a real force … [an]
international organisation of workers’ associations… capable of
replacing this… world of States and bourgeoisie.” (Bakunin)
“only the trade union sections can give their members… practical
education and consequently only they can draw into the organisation of
the International the masses of the proletariat, those masses without
whose practical co-operation… the Social Revolution will never be able
to triumph” (Bakunin)
“Revolutionary Anarchist Communist propaganda within the Labour Unions
had always been a favourite mode of action in the Federalist or
‘Bakuninist’ section of the International Working Men’s Association. In
Spain and in Italy it had been especially successful. Now it was
resorted to, with evident success, in France and Freedom eagerly
advocated this sort of propaganda” (Kropotkin)
“But what anarchists – again with the exception of anarcho-syndicalists
– lack is a coherent idea of how the minority can act today so as best
to contribute to majority action tomorrow.” (MT)
“the workers’ world… is left with but a single path, that of
emancipation through practical action… It means workers’ solidarity in
their struggle against the bosses. It means trades-unions, organisation,
and the federation of resistance funds… reducing working hours and
increasing salary… the International… will propagandise its principles…
organise across the frontiers of all countries… so that when the
revolution … breaks out… the International will be a real force … [an]
international organisation of workers’ associations… capable of
replacing this… world of States and bourgeoisie.” (Bakunin)
“Faithful to the anarchist traditions of the International… [Spanish
anarchists] remain in the working class, they struggle with it… They
bring their energy to the workers’ organisation and work to build up a
force which will crush Capital on the day of the revolution: the
revolutionary trade association. Trade sections, federations of all the
trades…. We could not do less than advise the French workers to take up
again … the traditions of the International, to organise themselves
outside all political parties by inscribing on their banner solidarity
in the struggle against Capital.” (Kropotkin)
“Bakunin did not see the working class as the central agent of
revolution. He considered peasants and the urban unemployed, beggars,
petty criminals, etc. to be much more potent revolutionary forces.” (MT)
“it is necessary to organise the power of the proletariat. But this
organisation must be the work of the proletariat itself… Organise,
constantly organize the international militant solidarity of the
workers, in every trade and country, and remember that however weak you
are as isolated individuals or districts, you will constitute a
tremendous, invincible power by means of universal co-operation”
(Bakunin)
“for the International to be a real power, it must organise within its
ranks the immense majority of the proletariat… The workers… join the
International for… solidarity in the struggle for full economic rights
against the oppressive exploitation by the bourgeoisie … the
organisation of solidarity in the economic struggle of labour against
capitalism.” (Bakunin)
“to create a people’s force capable of crushing the military and civil
force of the State, it is necessary to organise the proletariat”
(Bakunin)
“a living, powerful, socialist movement… can be made a reality only by
the awakened revolutionary consciousness, the collective will, and the
organization of the working masses themselves.” (Bakunin)
“a new social order based… upon the collective appropriation of the
instruments of labour… [created] by the development and organisation… of
the social (and, by consequence, anti-political) power of the working
masses.” (Bakunin)
“The general principle established by Marx of the need for socialists to
build and seek to broaden out trade unions would be complicated by the
rise of trade-union bureaucracies, increasingly separating off into a
distinct social layer mediating between workers and the bosses.” (MT)
“Having convinced themselves that what they would like their [union]
sections to do is what the membership actually wants, the committees
make decisions for them without even bothering to consult them… The
construction workers’ section simply left all decision-making to their
committees… This is very good for the committees, but not at all
favourable for the social, intellectual, and moral progress of the
collective power of the International. In this manner power gravitated
to the committees… the sections could defend their rights and their
autonomy in only one way: the workers called general membership
meetings. Nothing arouses the antipathy of the committees more than
these popular [union] assemblies… the items on the agenda were amply
discussed and the most progressive opinion prevailed… In these
assemblies… great numbers of previously passive workers, caught up in
the general camaraderie, repudiated their leaders and voted against
their resolutions” (Bakunin)
“anarcho-syndicalism … is the version of anarchism that identifies the
society of the future as a federation of industries each run by the
trade-union of the workers in the industry.” (MT)
“Bakunin’s programme… [is that] the working class must not occupy itself
with politics. They must only organise themselves by trades-unions…
[and] by means of the International, they will supplant the place of all
existing states.” (Marx)
“The future social organisation must be made solely from the bottom up,
by the free association or federation of workers, firstly in their
unions, then in the communes, regions, nations and finally in a great
federation, international and universal.” (Bakunin)
“The organisaion of the trade sections and… the Chambers of Labour… bear
in themselves the living seeds of the new society which is to replace
the old world. They are creating not only the ideas, but also the facts
of the future itself.” (Bakunin)
“we hold that the granges, trade-unions, Knights of Labour assemblies,
etc., are the embryonic groups of the ideal anarchistic society” (Lucy
Parsons)
“Unions… are natural organs for the direct struggle with capitalism and
for the composition of the future social order” (Kropotkin)
“In times when working-class organisation and struggle have run at a
high level, many anarchists have gone over to anarcho-syndicalism, i.e.
to much the same idea as Marxists about the centrality of the
wage-working class and its everyday struggles.” (MT)
“Bakunin has a peculiar theory… carry on propaganda, heap abuse on the
state, organise, and when all the workers… are own over, depose all the
authorities, abolish the state and replace it with the organisation of
the International.” (Engels)
“I have… never ceased to urge the comrades into that direction which the
syndicalists, forgetting the past, call new, even though it was already
glimpsed and followed, in the International, by the first of the
anarchists” (Malatesta)
“anarchists… do not seek to constitute, and invite the working men not
to constitute, political parties in the parliaments. Accordingly, since
the foundation of the International Working Men’s Association in 1864-
1866, they have endeavoured to promote their ideas directly amongst the
labour organisations and to induce those unions to a direct struggle
against capital, without placing their faith in parliamentary
legislation.” (Kropotkin)
“the split in the revolutionary movement… one, under Marx and Engels,
aiming at political conquest; the other, under Bakunin and the Latin
workers, forging ahead along industrial and Syndicalist lines…
Syndicalism is, in essence, the economic expression of Anarchism.”
(Goldman)
“Modern Anarcho-Syndicalism is a direct continuation of those social
aspirations which took shape in the bosom of the First International and
which were best understood and most strongly held by the libertarian
wing of the great workers’ alliance” (Rudolf Rocker)
“Unlike other variants of anarchism, anarchosyndicalism focuses on the
wage-working class. It has a coherent idea of what to do in
un-revolutionary times: build up the unions which will later be the
instruments of revolution.” (MT)
“Organise the city proletariat in the name of revolutionary Socialism,
and in doing this, unite it into one preparatory organisation together
with the peasantry.” (Bakunin)
“The union is absolutely necessary. It is the only form of workers’
grouping which permits the direct struggle to be maintained against
capital without falling into parliamentarism.” (Kropotkin)
“With an admirable tenacity they [the anarchist workers] organise their
unions, within each nation and internationally, and with a still more
admirable ardour they prepare the great coming struggle of Labour
against Capital: the coming of the international general strike.”
(Kropotkin)
“direct action and the direct struggle of the workers against capital….
workers are realising that they alone must free themselves… making use
of Direct Action as the preparatory means for the final battle of
exploited Labour against… Capital” (Kropotkin)
“the strength of the worker… is in the shop and factory, in the mill and
mine. It is there that he must organise; there, on the job… Every shop
and factory should have its special committee… Its members are recalled
at will and others selected in their place… It is the workers who decide
the matters at issue and carry their decisions out through the shop
committees… [This is] the form of organisation that labour needs… These
shop and factory committees, combined with similar bodies in other mills
and mines, associated locally, regionally, and nationally, would
constitute a new type of labour organisation.” (Berkman)
“The Bakunin wing’s opposition…. to electoral activity by socialists was
not an exaggerated but understandable reaction against socialists
allowing that activity to suck in too much of their energies and their
hopes…. Socialists would allow electoral activity to suck in too much of
their energies and their hopes… socialists who in their majority turned
out to be unprincipled parliamentary reformists” (MT)
“The worker-deputies, transplanted into a bourgeois environment, into an
atmosphere of purely bourgeois ideas, will in fact cease to be workers
and, becoming Statesmen, they will become bourgeois… For men do not make
their situations; on the contrary, men are made by them.” (Bakunin)
“Hardly any of these ideas are new: almost all are derived from the
Bakunist section of the old International” (Bertrand Russell)
“Medieval Communes… [were] idealised by Bakunin, and, later, even more
so by Kropotkin.” (MT)
“Mazzini, in his hatred of the Paris Commune, has gone to the extreme of
sheer foolishness. He maintains that the… revolution in Paris would lead
us back to the medieval ages… He does not understand, poor fellow, that
between the commune of the Middle Ages and the modern commune there is
the vast difference which the history of the last five centuries
wrought” (Bakunin)
“Between the Commune of the middle ages and that…established today…
there will be plenty of essential differences: a veritable abyss opened
up by six or seven centuries of human development… all the great cities
will unfurl the same flag ” (Kropotkin)
“Bakunin…. made no demand for the expropriation of capitalist property
or the collective ownership of the means of production.” (MT)
“organise society in such a manner that every individual … should find…
equal means for the development of his or her diverse faculties and
their utilisation in his or her work… rendering impossible the
exploitation of anyone’s labour… enable every individual to enjoy the
social wealth… only in so far as he contributes directly toward the
creation of that wealth… the serious realisation of liberty, justice,
and peace will be impossible so long as the majority of the population…
is condemned to… producing all the wealth…. and receiving in return only
such a small part thereof … [Hence] the necessity of a radical social
and economic reconstruction, having for its aim the emancipation of
people’s labour from the yoke of capital and property owners” (Bakunin)
“the land, the instruments of work and all other capital… become the
collective property of the whole of society and be utilised only by the
workers, in other words by the agricultural and industrial
associations.” (Bakunin)
“Proudhon… did not even see industrial capital as exploitative.” (MT)
“property… degrades us, by making us servants and tyrants to one
another…. wage-worker[s]… work under a master … the surplus of labour,
essentially collective, passes entirely, like the revenue, to the
proprietor… the worker, whose share of the collective product is
constantly confiscated by the entrepreneur, is always on his uppers,
while the capitalist is always in profit” (Proudhon)
“the [Anarchist] assertion that… capitalism is the product of the
state.” (MT)
“The State is authority, domination, and force, organised by the
property-owning and so-called enlightened classes against the masses…
the State’s domination… [is] that of the privileged classes who it
solely represents” (Bakunin)
“The State is there to protect exploitation, speculation and private
property.” (Kropotkin)
“the State… and Capitalism are facts and conceptions which we cannot
separate from each other. In the course of history these institutions
have developed, supporting and reinforcing each other.” (Kropotkin)
“the State is necessary only to maintain or protect property and
monopoly. It has proven efficient in that function only.” (Goldman)
“[Bakunin’s] repeated declaration that the first step in any revolution
should be to have ‘all legal papers consigned to the flames’, and all
public regulation of debts and taxes abolished, was designed to appeal
to the peasant for whom ‘the state’ is nothing but the unwelcome
tax-collector.” (MT)
“the revolution must set out from the first to radically and totally
destroy the State… The natural and necessary consequence of this
destruction will be… dissolution of army, magistracy, bureaucracy,
police and priesthood…. confiscation of all productive capital and means
of production on behalf of workers’ associations, who are to put them to
use” (Bakunin)
“Paris will naturally make haste to organise itself as best it can, in
revolutionary style, after the workers have joined into associations and
made a clean sweep of all the instruments of labour, every kind of
capital and building; armed and organised by streets and quartiers, they
will form the revolutionary federation of all the quartiers, the
federative commune… All the French and foreign revolutionary communes
will then send representatives to organise the necessary common
services… and to organise common defence against the enemies of the
Revolution, together with propaganda, the weapon of revolution, and
practical revolutionary solidarity with friends in all countries against
enemies in all countries” (Bakunin)
“in order that the peasants rise up, it is absolutely necessary that the
initiative in this revolutionary movement be taken up by the city
workers… who combine in themselves the instincts, ideas, and conscious
will of the Social Revolution” (Bakunin)
“the working class must aim for the expropriation of the capitalists and
public ownership of the means of production.” (MT)
“under universal association, ownership of the land and of the
instruments of labour is social ownership ... We want the mines, canals,
railways handed over to democratically organised workers’ associations…
We want these associations to be models for agriculture, industry and
trade, the pioneering core of that vast federation of companies and
societies woven into the common cloth of the democratic and social
Republic.” (Proudhon)
“all the capital, the factories, and all instruments of work and raw
materials to go to the associations, and the land to those who cultivate
it with their own hands.” (Bakunin)
“the serious, final, complete liberation of the workers is possible only
upon one condition: that of the appropriation of capital, that is, of
raw material and all the tools of labour, including land, by the whole
body of the workers.” (Bakunin)
“a successful uprising… [involves] the complete political, juridical,
financial, and administrative liquidation of the State, and of political
and privately owned or controlled (but not strictly) personal property;
the demolition of all the functions, services, and powers of the State…
workers’ associations would then take possession of all the tools of
production as well as all buildings and capital” (Bakunin)
“The next revolution must from its inception bring about the seizure of
the entire social wealth by the workers in order to transform it into
common property. This revolution can succeed only through the workers,
only if the urban and rural workers everywhere carry out this objective
themselves. To that end, they must initiate their own action in the
period before the revolution; this can happen only if there is a strong
workers’ organisation.” (Kropotkin)
“Expropriation – that is the guiding word of the coming revolution,
without which it will fail in its historic mission: the complete
expropriation of all those who have the means of exploiting human
beings; the return to the community of the nation of everything that in
the hands of anyone can be used to exploit others” (Kropotkin)
“To destroy radically this oppression… all people must be convinced of
their right to the means of production, and be prepared to exercise this
basic right by expropriating the landowners, the industrialists and
financiers, and putting all social wealth at the disposal of the
people.” (Malatesta)
“[Black Flame] concede[s] that counter-revolutionary groups will not
disappear instantly, and accept the need for… ‘coordinated military
defence’ with ‘the best weaponry’ (i.e. not just scattered militia
groups…).” (MT)
“In order to defend the revolution… volunteers will… form a communal
militia. But no commune can defend itself in isolation. So it will be
necessary to radiate revolution outward, to raise all of its
neighbouring communes in revolt… and to federate with them for common
defence” (Bakunin)
“the peasants, like the industrial city workers, should unite by
federating the fighting battalions, district by district, assuring a
common co-ordinated defence against internal and external enemies”
(Bakunin)
“creation of voluntary militia, without powers to interfere as militia
in the life of the community, but only to deal with any armed attacks by
the forces of reaction to re-establish themselves, or to resist outside
intervention” (Malatesta)
“your duty, as an Anarchist, [is] to protect your liberty, to resist
coercion and compulsion…. The armed workers and peasants are the only
effective defence of the revolution. By means of their unions and
syndicates they must always be on guard against counter-revolutionary
attack” (Berkman
“The Commune…. was made up of elected representatives who were
accountable to their voters and easily recallable… ‘a working, not a
parliamentary, body, executive and legislative at the same time’… not
like a bourgeois parliament…. [with] an executive government separate
from it and standing above it.” (MT)
“the imperative mandate, and permanent revocability are the most
immediate and incontestable consequences of the electoral principle. It
is the inevitable program of all democracy” (Proudhon)
“It is up to the National Assembly, through organisation of its
committees, to exercise executive power, just the way it exercises
legislative power… Besides universal suffrage and as a consequence of
universal suffrage, we want implementation of the imperative mandate.
Politicians balk at it! Which means that in their eyes, the people, in
electing representatives, do not appoint mandatories but rather abjure
their sovereignty!” (Proudhon)
“the collective ownership of property by freely organised producers’
associations, and… federation of communes, to replace the… State…
Proudhonism, greatly developed and taken to its ultimate conclusion by
the proletariat of the Latin countries…. has just attempted its first
striking and practical demonstration in the Paris Commune.” (Bakunin)
“The climax of Marx’s activity in the First International was his
writing of ‘The Civil War in France’, the International’s statement of
solidarity with the Paris Commune of March-May 1871. This was the major
text by Marx likely to be read by the activists of the International.”
(MT)
“The general effect [of the Commune] was so striking that the Marxists
themselves, who saw their ideas upset by the uprising, found themselves
compelled to take their hats off to it. They went further, and
proclaimed that its programme and purpose were their own, in face of the
simplest logic… This was a truly farcical change of costume” (Bakunin)
“Workers then need much broader and more flexible organisations than
even the trade unions… workers’ councils” (MT)
“Toilers count no longer on anyone but yourselves. Do not demoralise and
paralyse your growing strength by being duped into alliances with
bourgeois Radicalism… organise outside of it the forces of the
proletariat. The bases of this organisation are already completely
given: they are the workshops and the federation of workshops….
instruments of struggle against the bourgeoisie, and their federation,
not only national, but international.” (Bakunin)
“the federative Alliance of all working men’s associations… constitute
the Commune… [the] Communal Council [is] composed of… delegates… vested
with plenary but accountable and removable mandates… constitute the
federation of insurgent associations, communes and provinces…. organise
a
revolutionary force capable defeating reaction… [and for] self-defence…
[The] revolution everywhere must be created by the people, and supreme
control must always belong to the people organised into a free
federation of agricultural and industrial associations… organised from
the bottom upwards by means of revolutionary delegation” (Bakunin)
“there is no other system but that of the republic as a commune, the
republic as a federation, a Socialist and a genuine people’s republic –
the system of Anarchism… a free federation from below upward, of workers
associations, industrial as well as agricultural… first into a commune,
then a federation communes into regions, of regions into nations, and of
nations into international fraternal association.” (Bakunin)
“workers’ organisations… must take the place of existing capitalist
exploitation and the state…it is the duty and the task of the workers’
organisations to work out the new form of society.” (Kropotkin)
“The Paris Commune… had shown that ‘the working class cannot simply lay
hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own
purposes’. The working class must create a new form of state, a
semi-state as Lenin would call it ... a split against a ‘Marxism’
defined principally by ‘The Civil War in France’ was assuredly not a
split against a socialism of manipulating the existing state machine”
(MT)
“[This quote from The Civil War in France] is simply a question of
showing that the victorious proletariat must first refashion the old
bureaucratic, administrative centralised state power before it can use
it for its own purposes.” (Engels)
“the way to show political power [in Britain] lies open to the working
class. Insurrection would be madness where peaceful agitation would more
swiftly and surely do the work.” (Marx)
“the institutions, customs and traditions in the different countries
must be taken into account; and we do not deny the existence of
countries like America, England, and if I knew your institutions better
I might add Holland, where the workers may achieve their aims by
peaceful means” (Marx)
“[In Holland] only a few changes will have to be made to establish that
free self-government by the working class” (Engels)
“the only organisation the victorious working class finds ready-made for
use, is that of the State. It may require adaptation to the new
functions. But to destroy that at such a moment, would be to destroy the
only organism by means of which the working class can exert its newly
conquered power” (Engels)
“the republic… is the ready-for-use form for the future rule of the
proletariat.” (Engels)
“If one thing is certain it is that our Party and the working class can
only come to power under the form of a democratic republic. This is even
the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat” (Engels)
“The ‘Civil War in France’ was the main text on which Lenin would later
draw to write his ‘State and Revolution’, and the Bolsheviks to propose
the rule of workers’ councils (soviets) as the form of a workers’
regime.” (MT)
“the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an
organisation embracing the whole of the class, because in all capitalist
countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the
proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts…
that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly
exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a
vanguard… Such is the basic mechanism of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, and the essentials of transition from capitalism to
communism… for the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised
by a mass proletarian organisation.” (Lenin)
“The revolutionary dictatorship of a proletarian party is for me not a
thing that one can freely accept or reject: It is an objective necessity
imposed upon us by the social realities – the class struggle, the
heterogeneity of the revolutionary class, the necessity for a selected
vanguard in order to assure the victory. The dictatorship of a party
belongs to the barbarian prehistory as does the state itself, but we can
not jump over this chapter… The revolutionary party (vanguard) which
renounces its own dictatorship surrenders the masses to the
counter-revolution… Abstractly speaking, it would be very well if the
party dictatorship could be replaced by the ‘dictatorship’ of the whole
toiling people without any party, but this presupposes such a high level
of political development among the masses that it can never be achieved
under capitalist conditions.” (Trotsky)
“Trotsky fought Stalinism to the death.” (MT)
“This growing replacement of the party by its own apparatus is promoted
by a ‘theory’ of Stalin’s which denies the Leninist principle,
inviolable for every Bolshevik, that the dictatorship of the proletariat
is and can be realized only through the dictatorship of the party… The
dictatorship of the proletariat imperiously demands a single and united
proletarian party.” (Trotsky)
“The Workers’ Opposition has come out with dangerous slogans, making a
fetish of democratic principles! They place the workers’ right to elect
representatives above the Party, as if the party were not entitled to
assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashed
with the passing moods of the workers’ democracy. It is necessary to
create amongst us the awareness of the revolutionary birthright of the
party, which is obliged to maintain its dictatorship, regardless of
temporary wavering even in the working classes. This awareness is for us
the indispensable element. The dictatorship does not base itself at
every given moment on the formal principle of a workers’ democracy.”
(Trotsky)
“The very same masses are at different times inspired by different moods
and objectives. It is just for this reason that a centralised
organisation of the vanguard is indispensable. Only a party, wielding
the authority it has won, is capable of overcoming the vacillation of
the masses themselves… if the dictatorship of the proletariat means
anything at all, then it means that the vanguard of the proletariat is
armed with the resources of the state in order to repel dangers,
including those emanating from the backward layers of the proletariat
itself.” (Trotsky)
“Schmidt and van der Walt claim [Trotsky] ‘envisaged socialism as
‘authoritarian leadership… centralised distribution of the labour force…
the workers’ state… entitled to send any worker wherever his labour may
be needed’, with dissenters sent to labour camps if necessary’… None of
the words was ever written by Trotsky as a statement of his vision of
socialism.” (MT)
Trotsky’s Terrorism and Communism (1920):
“the only solution to economic difficulties from the point of view of
both principle and of practice is to treat the population of the whole
country as the reservoir of the necessary labour power… and to introduce
strict order into the work of its registration, mobilisation and
utilisation.”
“We have… been accused of having substituted for the dictatorship of the
Soviets the dictatorship of our party. Yet… the dictatorship of the
Soviets became possible only by means of the dictatorship of the party….
In this ‘substitution’ of the power of the party for the power of the
working class there is nothing accidental, and in reality there is no
substitution at all.”
“we can have no way to Socialism except by the authoritative regulation
of the economic forces and resources of the country, and the centralised
distribution of labour-power in harmony with the general State plan.”
“I consider if the civil war had not plundered our economic organs of
all that was strongest, most independent, most endowed with initiative,
we should undoubtedly have entered the path of one-man management in the
sphere of economic administration much sooner and much less painfully.”
“the road to Socialism lies through a period of the highest possible
intensification of the principle of the State… Just as a lamp, before
going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the State, before
disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat,
i.e., the most ruthless form of State, which embraces the life of the
citizens authoritatively in every direction… No organisation except the
army has ever controlled man with such severe compulsion as does the
State organisation of the working class in the most difficult period of
transition. It is just for this reason that we speak of the
militarisation of labour.”
“When the IWW leader Big Bill Haywood, in August 1920, read an appeal by
the Communist International leadership written to try to convince IWW
activists that the International was the best continuation of the IWW’s
tradition, he exclaimed: ‘Here is what we have been dreaming about; here
is the IWW all feathered out!’” (MT)
“The Russian Soviet Republic… is the most highly centralised government
that exists. It is also the most democratic government in history. For
all the organs of government are in constant touch with the working
masses, and constantly sensitive to their will” (Zinoviev to the IWW)
“soviet rule in Russia could not have been maintained for three years –
not even three weeks – without the iron dictatorship of the Communist
Party… the dictatorship of the working class can be achieved only by the
dictatorship of its vanguard, i.e., by the Communist Party… All
questions… on which the fate of the proletarian revolution depends… are
decided… mostly in the framework of the party organisations… Control by
the party over soviet organs, over the trade unions” (Zinoviev, 1920)
“Today, people like Kautsky come along and say that in Russia you do not
have the dictatorship of the working class but the dictatorship of the
party. They think this is a reproach against us. Not in the least! We
have a dictatorship of the working class and that is precisely why we
also have a dictatorship of the Communist Party. The dictatorship of the
Communist Party is only a function, an attribute, an expression of the
dictatorship of the working class… the dictatorship of the proletariat
is at the same time the dictatorship of the Communist Party.” (Zinoviev,
1920)
“the State cannot be sure of its own self-preservation without an armed
force to defend it ... against the discontent of its own people.”
(Bakunin)
An Anarchist FAQ – www.anarchistfaq.org.uk
Anarchist Federation –
Solidarity Federation –
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